Metro News & Reviews

Artist Jessica Polzin McCoy will sign free copies of her poster celebrating the City of Claremont at 10:30 a.m. on Friday, May 31 at the Claremont Library.

Polzin McCoy was commissioned by Metro Creative Services to create the artwork for its poster series, Through the Eyes of Artists. The program commissions local artists to create original artworks that express the uniqueness of Los Angeles County neighborhoods as a way of encouraging people to take Metro to explore destinations served by the agency.

Beginning in Spring 2013, the poster will be displayed on Metro buses and rail cars traveling throughout Los Angeles County.

Keep reading for more information on the Claremont poster and the Metro Art Program.

As seen through the eyes of Polzin McCoy, Claremont is depicted as a series of delicate watercolor vignettes that illustrate the city as a college town that flourishes within the creative environment of The Claremont University Consortium, and opens an informal invitation to visit a backyard, ride a bike, step into a shady grove and attend school.

“Every town is unique; it has specific characteristics, a visual identity,” explains Polzin McCoy. “It was my goal to capture the identity of Claremont. It may not include everything that is meaningful, or the most easily identifiable places in the village, but as a whole it captures the tone, spirit, and colors of the environment. The streetscape was assembled using images of private homes, public buildings, and businesses within the boundaries of Claremont.”

The Claremont poster is number twenty-seven in the series of posters commissioned by Metro Creative Services.Posters in the series have garnered a Print Magazine Regional Design Annual Excellence Award, Tranny Merit Award, “Fresh” Illustrations Award from Illustrations Magazine Annual, Los Angeles Society of Illustrators Silver Medal, a Society of Environmental Graphic Design Award and a Hermes Creative Award.

Through the Eyes of ArtistsIn the tradition of celebrating transportation through colorful travel destination posters, Metro commissions a diverse range of Los Angeles artists to create original artworks. The purpose of the series is to express the distinctive character of neighborhoods and destinations served by Metro. The posters are displayed throughout the Metro system, including on trains and buses, in stations and various other locations.

Metro Art Program
From rail and bus stations to transit facilities, construction fences and poetry cards, Metro Art enriches the transit environment and contributes to the artistic vibrancy of the neighborhoods we serve. Metro commissions artists to create engaging artworks that make the journey more inviting and pleasurable for transit users. The artworks mirror Los Angeles County’s rich contemporary and popular cultures.

Established in 1989, the Metro Art program has commissioned over 300 artists for a wide variety of temporary and permanent projects. Artists are selected through a peer review process with community input. All works are created specifically for their transit-related sites. Metro’s public art policy allocates one half of one percent of project construction costs for art.

This poster was made in anticipation of the Gold Line Extension to Claremont, to let riders know of places Metro will be able to take them. Metro came out with a Chatsworth poster before the Orange Line Extension was completed last year.

But the Glendora-Claremont stretch of Gold Line is still not completely funded (although the cities along the route seem very confident that it WILL happen)… Is Metro anticipating that Phase 2B will happen in the near future?

At this point, they have not — just as they have not for unfunded segments of other projects. The issue is that most grants require matching funds from Metro and those aren’t available at this time. The money that is available is being used to pay for the projects included in Measure R. The extension further east is in the agency’s long-range plan, but it’s not funded at this time.

The train from Claremont to Union station runs hourly to every 2 hrs, except for the period of 5:30 a.m. to 7:45 a.m. I missed the 7:45 a.m. train the first day of using the service – and had to wait over an hour for the next train. That limited of a schedule was not of great value to me for work purposes. A train could connect 2 locations once a year and your statement above would be true – but it still wouldn’t be of much value. http://www.sgvtribune.com/opinions/ci_23215616/metro-must-keep-faith-gold-line-opinion

Claremont is in LA County, and Metro is a countywide agency. So, even though Metro has no buses in the area and refuses to fully fund the Foothill Extension to Claremont, as described in Measure R, I can sort of see why they might release a poster saying “Go Metro to Claremont.” Sort of.

Measure R did not guarantee funding of the Gold Line to Claremont or beyond. It funded the first segment to Azusa. Other Measure R transit projects were also not fully funded — the Regional Connector, the Sepulveda Pass Transit Corridor, the West Santa Ana Branch Corridor, the Airport Metro Connector and the South Bay Green Line Extension. As with the Gold Line, Measure R does provide funds for those projects but other funds will be needed to complete particular alternatives that are under study. Measure R also provides more than $1 billion to extend the other leg of the Gold Line to either South El Monte or Whittier.